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Professional Certificate in Mental Health Practice (PR-MHPRAC) // Attributes, outcomes and skills
About this course
Coordinator
Associate Professor Carol Harvey
Contact
Currently enrolled students:
- General information: https://ask.unimelb.edu.au
- Contact: http://students.unimelb.edu.au/stop1
Future Students:
- Further information and enquiries: http://go.unimelb.edu.au/fp7a
Intended learning outcomes
This course outlines the knowledge, skills and attitudes required when individual members of the five main mental health professions work in a mental health service (nursing, social work, occupational therapy and other allied health fields, psychology and psychiatry).
The course aims to complement each of the professional groups’ discipline-specific practice standards or competencies and address the shared knowledge and skills required when working in a multidisciplinary mental health environment through critical analysis and practical application.
These course objectives are consistent with the National Practice Standards for Mental Health Services.
- Recognise the human rights of people with mental health problems, identify relevant mental health legislation and relate these to practice with consumers and carers.
- Identify ethical practice in everyday practice and reflect on how ethical breaches are addressed.
- Enhance the framework for mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention through critical analysis of strategies and the broader context.
- Examine and reflect on consumer and carer rights and identities and identify ways to improve the opportunities for consumer and carer participation, representation and advocacy in mental health services.
- Develop and broaden a definition of recovery which reflects an understanding of the concept as both a personal process and a paradigm for mental health care.
- Identify and reflect on consumers’, family members’ and/or carers’ unique physical, emotional, social, cultural and spiritual dimensions and apply these to practice.
- Develop and broaden the framework for understanding mental health across the lifespan and relate this to age-sensitive recovery processes.
- Analyse the connection between lived experience, knowledge, and evidence-based practice and apply to mental health practice.
- Identify the impact of factors (biological, psychological, social) on the consumer’s experience of mental illness and relate these to interventions to minimise negative and maximise positive outcomes in collaboration with consumers.
- Identify principles and practices of collaborative care planning and apply these to practice.
- Engage in reflective practice and self-directed professional development and reflect these learnings in practice.
Generic skills
Knowledge
Graduates of the Professional Certificate in Mental Health Practice will have:
- a body of knowledge that consolidates their understanding in evidence-informed and collaborative mental health practice, and how they relate to professional practice.
- knowledge of the wider social and cultural context applicable to mental health practice.
Skills
Graduates of the Professional Certificate in Mental Health Practice will have:
- cognitive skills to demonstrate mastery of theories and skills; and to reflect critically on the theory and professional practice of mental health.
- cognitive, technical and creative skills to investigate, analyse and synthesise complex information, problems, concepts and theories and to apply established theories within mental health to different bodies of knowledge or practice
- cognitive, technical and creative skills to generate and evaluate complex concepts at an abstract level
Application of knowledge and skills
Graduates of the Professional Certificate in Mental Health Practice will demonstrate the application of knowledge & skills:
- with creativity and initiative to new situations in professional practice and/or for further learning
Graduate attributes
The Melbourne Experience enables our graduates to become:
- Academically excellent:
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- have a strong sense of intellectual integrity and the ethics of scholarship
- have in-depth knowledge of their specialist discipline(s)
- reach a high level of achievement in writing, generic research activities, problem-solving and communication
- be critical and creative thinkers, with an aptitude for continued self-directed learning
- be adept at learning in a range of ways, including through information and communication technologies
- Knowledgeable across disciplines:
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- examine critically, synthesise and evaluate knowledge across a broad range of disciplines
- expand their analytical and cognitive skills through learning experiences in diverse subjects
- have the capacity to participate fully in collaborative learning and to confront unfamiliar problems
- have a set of flexible and transferable skills for different types of employment
- Leaders in communities:
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- initiate and implement constructive change in their communities, including professions and workplaces
- have excellent interpersonal and decision-making skills, including an awareness of personal strengths and limitations
- mentor future generations of learners
- engage in meaningful public discourse, with a profound awareness of community needs
- Attuned to cultural diversity:
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- value different cultures
- be well-informed citizens able to contribute to their communities wherever they choose to live and work
- have an understanding of the social and cultural diversity in our community
- respect indigenous knowledge, cultures and values
- Active global citizens:
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- accept social and civic responsibilities
- be advocates for improving the sustainability of the environment
- have a broad global understanding, with a high regard for human rights, equity and ethics
Last updated: 18 December 2020